


inclement weather

by selinawrites



Series: the life and times of steven grant rogers [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming Out, Depressed Steve Rogers, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Gay Panic, Gay Steve Rogers, Grief/Mourning, Groundhog Day, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Prequel, Time Loop, dumbass behaviour, kind of not really, steve is an idiot lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-08-11 06:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20149114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selinawrites/pseuds/selinawrites
Summary: It's springtime, 1946. Steve Rogers scrapes the tip of his toe up against the gravel pavement and takes a deep breath before knocking on the door and starting a new life with Peggy Carter.And then he goes to sleep that night, and wakes up on the day he's supposed to return the infinity stones.And he wakes up on that day again, and again, and again.





	1. in the beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [劣日](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20675273) by [its_Vian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_Vian/pseuds/its_Vian)

> hello and welcome to my new fic! this is a complementary prequel to my previous fic, 'thrones of vermillion', however it can be read alone. if you have read 'thrones of vermillion', this story will have an actual plot and conflict unlike that story which was 30k words of fluff and falling in love :~)
> 
> thank you to its_Vian for translating this fic into chinese!

Steve Rogers woke up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart. 

Today was the day. It was time to go back to the five places in time where they took the infinity stones and return them. It would be a long, taxing journey and in the end he wouldn’t even be sure if he came out alive.

It was five in the morning, and he could’ve gone back to sleep for another three hours, but one thing he had quickly realized was that once he was awake, there was no going back to sleep.

They set him up with a hotel room that was swarming with other occupants after the battle, as many houses and apartments had been destroyed, making many households displaced and without a home to stay in.

The sun was just about rising, and he could see that today was going to be a cloudy day of white and grey.

He drags himself out of bed, the exhaustion dripping off of him. Steve doesn’t know why he still goes to bed, knowing he either won’t get any sleep, or be woken up by nightmares soon after his eyes shut.

Today was different. It was his first solo mission, and he could die. He never entertained death as plainly as he did now, but with both Tony and Natasha having recently departed, he couldn’t help but think that his demise was inevitable too.

He showers quickly, trying to use the hot water and soap to scrub the memories off of his skin. By the time he finishes showering and towel dries himself until his hair is soft and fluffy, his shield, a suit of armor, the infinity gauntlet, and Mjolnir are lying on his bed.

Steve grimaced. The last thing he wanted to do was put on the same suit he last saw Tony in. It had been so soon after the war, the suit hadn’t even been thoroughly cleaned. It was visibly a lot cleaner and wasn’t soaked in grime, but it still smelled like death and lost friends.

He didn’t say anything on the elevator ride down. Some local news station had reported that today was the day that the infamous Captain America would be going back in time and returning the infinity stones, and now there were reporters and passersby alike swarming him with questions on his descent down.

He doesn’t answer any of their questions. Not the couple in the elevator, not the receptionist at the front desk, and certainly not to the reporter in the lobby.

“Are you returning the stones today?” The couple asks. And yes, he is.

“How do you feel about Tony Stark and Natalia Romanoff’s death?” The receptionist asks. And first of all, her name is Natasha.

“Did everyone come back from the dead?” The reporter asks. Yes, everyone is back from the dead.

“Will Bucky Barnes be there to send you off?” The reporter asks again, before Steve has time to evade the press. Unfortunately, yes.

He answers them in his head, but never out loud. Because every single question makes his stomach turn.

Steve is infinitely grateful when he steps into the limousine. The driver takes one look at him and wordlessly raises the partition between them.

He’s grateful until about five minutes into the drive, when he realizes he has to endure the drive in silence, his conscious the only companion.

It starts to feel more and more like exile. Like he’s walking to the guillotine.

* * *

They have to do the ritual deep into the woods because the press keeps finding their tentative locations, with the air smelling of the sweet scent of the forest and something more sinister. Like ashes. Like pain. And as he came across the clearing in the woods, it felt more and more like a death sentence.

Bucky, Sam and Bruce had all been waiting there for him, and Bucky was the first to see him. It makes Steve’s heart twist a little, knowing that he might not even come back.

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” Steve says, the words decades old.

Bucky smiles, and the response is natural after all these years. “How can I?” He asks, voice low and raspy. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

And that was all they said to each other, a few recycled lines. Because Steve was too scared of what his heart might do if he said anything more. Because his heart had been put through the wringer lately.

He wants to say something else, but he decides to hug Bucky instead. He hugs him with everything left in hus body, because he wants to grip Bucky’s shoulders so tight and be certain that he wouldn’t crumble into very dust in front of his eyes again. And when they let go, Steve takes a deep breath and tries not to cry. He smiles for Bucky’s sake, but he knows damn well it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Steve steps onto the platform, all his weapons and objects in hand. It was time to do one last mission, because no one else would. Bruce Banner began the procedure, but everything was drowned out by the beating of his heart.

And then before he knew it, it was 2012 in New York City.

* * *

The mission is simple. Go in, return the stones, go out. He’s returned all five stones without even breaking a sweat. By his calculations, it would’ve been just about lunch time back in the present day. The last stone he returned was on Vormir, and he did that one so quickly because he was afraid of what might happen if he spends too long staring down at Natasha Romanoff’s lifeless body.

It wasn’t right, was what Steve knew for sure. It wasn’t right that Tony got a hero’s send off and a proper tribute while Natasha’s body was left on a foreign planet. But the mission wasn’t to retrieve Natasha’s body, and as much as he wanted to do so, he had to stick to the mission.

He was just finishing up on Vormir when his hands travelled to where the Pym particles lay. They had provided Steve with an additional Pym particle, in the event that something would occur.

And then, right as he was about to return to the time he had left, something had overcome him. A sudden urge and desire to just _ not go back _. 

He can’t go back to the 21st century. Because everywhere he goes the hollow stares of broken people follow him. He can’t go back, because he’s weak. Because every bone in his body threatens to shatter under the scrutiny of the public eye. Because he’s been waking up every morning with his heart hammering in his chest.

Because Tony and Natasha died, so he could live. He could live, when he knows all too well that he should have died in the ice seventy years ago. And he can’t handle facing a hero’s welcome when he should have died instead. It was always the plan, it was destiny. He should have died a martyr because people like him don’t have long lifespans anyway.

But if he went back to where he belonged, if he went to 1946… maybe the time of day would wipe out the beating in his heart.

* * *

It’s springtime, 1946 and the clouds are grey and the sky is moments away from rain. Oxford looks like something from Steve’s imagination, somewhere he had never been able to identify until now.

He recognizes the house, too. Sharon Carter had showed it to him on one of the slower days at the S.H.I.E.L.D agency. It was a large, ancestral home that looked like it had more stories than him. It was where families breathed.

He walks through the cobblestone path and pushes the creaky iron gate open. His heart is still hammering, but he also feels at ease. Because in this world, Natasha and Tony hadn’t been born yet, and therefore they cannot die.

He stands outside the wooden door and knocks on it twice, one for each death he could have prevented. Steve hears someone unlocking the door from the other side.

And there she is, Agent Margaret Carter not a day older than Steve’s memory.

Steve smiles his award winning grin, trying to hide the fact that the world had just stopped burning. “Agent Carter,” he says, thinking back to all the times he was driven mad with longing. “I believe I owe you a dance.” He says softly.

Agent Carter was not like any other woman that Steve met, and Steve admired her for that. It was the reason he was so drawn to her, because if it was any other woman, she would have already allowed Steve in. Instead, Peggy frowned and folded her arms, questions rolling off of her insistently.

“Steve?” She asks, just the slightest bit agitated. “How are you alive?”

Steve looks down bashfully at the ground. He really should have put more thought into this. He takes Peggy’s hand, as she leads him into the room in a daze.

Steve smiles at Peggy. “Someone found me in the ice.” He said, leaving out the part where they found him in the ice seventy years later.

“You’ve been gone for seven months. People pronounced you dead! Where have you been all this time?” Peggy exclaimed, as they were led into the living room. 

Steve tried to hide his distress upon hearing this question, for he had been gone for seven _ decades _, not seven months.

“I’ve been… travelling.” Steve decides on. “I’ve been in New York, but I could never stay away from my best girl, now can I?” Steve replied, as if he had been here all this time.

Peggy gave Steve a mournful smile and turned to put on a record. He’s almost astonished at how well Peggy reacts to this news. He knew that if they were in the 21st century, she would have flown to her smartphone device and checked if what Steve was saying matched with the faces.

And as the record came on, Steve’s body tensed. He recognized the [ record ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuOoBvM0Vb8) from another life, one before Thanos and infinity stones and Tony and Natasha’s death. It was the song that Nick Fury was playing the night he visited his apartment. It was the song that was playing when Nick Fury told Steve that S.H.I.E.L.D was compromised, that someone, who had later been identified as none other than Bucky Barnes, had tried to kill him. It was the song that played when the link between 21st century Steve and Bucky was drawn.

Steve dances with Peggy, because that was what they came here for. He came because he was a man of his word, because he never broke a promise.

_ Didn’t he promise to be with Bucky? Didn’t he promise to stay? _Those things didn’t matter, now that he wouldn’t have any chance defending earth without the aid of Tony and Natasha.

Their deaths resound deeply in his minds. And every time his eyes close, he can’t help but think that he doesn’t deserve to live. He should have died in the ice all those years before. Instead, he was here. He was dancing with Peggy. And no matter which way Steve looked at it, he was a science experiment bending the rules of time, not just a boy from Brooklyn anymore

Steve smiled as he held his future in his arms, mustering up the bravery left in his body to reach out and reclaim his destiny. He thought of Tony, and how even under dire circumstances he still managed to live a life with Pepper Potts and have a child. He saved the world, and then some. But the memory was tainted with the knowledge that he was _ dead _.

And so, if Tony could go back in time and right some wrongs and save half the universe and still come back with a wife and kids, shouldn’t Steve be entitled to the same as well? Steve wanted to believe that, but that wasn’t how it worked. Tony went back to save the world at the cost of his own life.

This is what Steve wanted all along, wasn’t it? This was his endgame. Peggy and him, they were soulmates cut from the same cloth.

The music ended with a swell, and Peggy smiled up at Steve. Steve smiled back, but he still felt that inescapable grief that came with shouldering his comrades deaths. He knew it would get better with time, though. He looked at Peggy and kissed her chastely.

“Do you have anywhere to be, Steve?”

Steve shook his head. “I’m right where I wanna be, Peggy.”

“You’re welcome to come and stay with me.” She said demurely.

Steve smiled bashfully. “I’d be honored.” He replied.

The two of them spent the time drinking glasses of wine in the afternoon and whiskey after dinner. They were catching up on missing months, and Steve felt more and more like this is where he needed to be.

Peggy had set him up in one of her guest rooms, and Steve kissed Peggy goodnight with a grin. 

“G’night, Peg.” He said through a tired tongue.

Peggy smiled and raised her hand to caress Steve’s cheek. “Goodnight, Steve.” She said, turning left at the end of the hall and going into her room. Steve opened the door to his room and fell asleep on the bed almost immediately.

The last thing he remembers before going to sleep is how the sheets smelled like another man’s cologne.

* * *

In the morning, Steve Rogers woke up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart. 

He got out of bed with a start, looking around at his surroundings. A chill crept up at the back of his neck and he felt his skin tingle. He looked to the left side table, and there was his smartphone on its charging stand.

Steve reached for his phone and checked the time, and that was what made his blood curdle. It was the exact day they were slated to return the stones. 

Something was seriously wrong.


	2. once more, with feeling!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where endgame steve is a misogynist and ca:tws steve is a raging feminist  
tw: heterosexuality

The first thought that registers in his mind is that he has to go back to Peggy. He has to go back to their future and their destiny, and the only rational way to do that was to repeat the actions he had already done.

Steve goes about his day, feeling an increasing level of deja vu as time wears on. He showers in the scalding water until his skin turns wrinkly, with a premonition at the back of his mind that he had done this all before. And it wasn’t like any other feelings of deja vu that he had experienced before. This was real, harrowing, and chilled him to the bone.

And when he stepped out of the shower still smelling of dust and decay, his uniform along with the items he needed to bring on his journey were resting on the bed like last time. Steve tries to steady his breath, because there was a completely rational explanation to all of these events having occurred for the second time around.

Right. Like there was a completely rational explanation to how he survived in the ice. Or how aliens invaded Earth. Or how death can claim the lives of the two bravest people he had ever known without as much as blinking. 

He dresses quickly and steps into the hall, recalling the vaguely familiar scent of antiseptic in the air. He presses the elevator once and it arrives instantly, just like the last time. And just like the last time, it’s only him and the couple in the elevator.

Steve tried to ignore the way they outwardly gawked at him, and braced for the question he already would know the answer for.

The man looks at him. “Excuse me sir,” he asks politely. Steve tried not to give him much grief, but it was a trying day. Or, a trying second attempt at the same day.

Steve raised an eyebrow as the man went on. “My wife just wanted to ask you a question.” He asked.

Steve let out an inaudible exhale and nodded wordlessly as the woman spoke up. “Are you returning the stones today?” She asks.

Steve does the same practise he did the first time around. The elevator was descending rapidly, and he glared at them long enough for the elevator to land on the ground for and to walk out without answering the question. Even so, he wouldn’t know what to answer the question with. He  _ had  _ returned the stones, but clearly not in this timeline, since the infinity gauntlet was secured firmly in between his hip and his arm.

He rounds the corner and the receptionist hails him down. It makes his skin crawl as he knows too well what her question will be. “How do you feel about Tony Stark and Natalia Romanoff’s death?” The receptionist asks. 

Steve takes a look at her and huffs, walking to the exit. And first of all, her name is Natasha.

He’s almost at the door when that damn reporter flags him down and steps in the middle of him and the glass door “Did everyone come back from the dead?” The reporter asks. It makes Steve’s mouth dry out, because while everyone came back from the dead, not everyone lived. He tries to maneuver away from him, but the reporter still has the gall to squeak out another question “Will Bucky Barnes be there to send you off?” The reporter asks again as Steve just manages to walk out of the hotel lobby. He doesn’t even want to dwell on that question. 

He swings open the limousine door with vigor, thrusting the door open widely. The driver gives him a sidelong look but doesn’t say anything further, instead opting to roll up the divider between passenger and driver.

Steve sighs. He can’t do this. He can’t go through this day again, not while he had no idea what anomaly put him here in the first place. He can’t bear to see Bucky’s patient eyes staring up at him sadly. He doesn’t know what to say, and he sure as hell doesn’t know what to do. 

Because when Steve looks into Bucky’s eyes with the newfound knowledge of what he’ll say and what Steve will end up doing, he’ll come crashing, he’s sure of it.

Steve’s hypothesis is tested when Bucky looks at Steve with a sad smile. And Steve is falling apart. He’s been falling apart for the last five years.

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” Steve says, the words decades old and just barely trying to escape him.

Bucky smiles and Steve can’t take it. He can’t go through with this knowing Bucky’s response, and knowing how in another life he was ready to leave his life in the 21st century and stay with Peggy. He doesn’t know what’s worse, knowing he did that before, or that he’d do it again.

“How can I?” He asks, voice low and raspy and Steve thinks he’s holding back tears. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Steve takes a deep breath and urges himself to pull it together. He has to stick to the script, so he hugs him with a thousand unsaid words, knowing that this is the last time they’d see each other. He smiles for Bucky, he smiles for what they could have had if life hadn’t gotten in the way

Steve steps onto the platform, all his weapons and objects in hand. One last mission, one last time. A few moments of heartache for a life in the suburbs with a wife and kids. Bruce Banner began the procedure, but everything was drowned out by the beating of his heart.

And then before he knew it, it was 2012 in New York City. Again.

* * *

By the time Steve Rogers decided to go back to 1946, the clouds overhead were gray and ready to pour down in torrential rain. He had just gone back and returned the stones once more, and for a fleeting moment he considered going back to the 21st century, but he refused.

It didn’t matter if the universe would keep looping. It didn’t matter if he was doomed to repeat this same day for the rest of his life. He couldn’t face the 21st century, with everyone’s tired eyes and hollow hearts.

He recognizes the house and walks up to the entrance. He knows it not just from imagination or from yellowing photographs, but because he knew with stark clarity that he had been here before. A part of him wants to turn back and run back to safety. But safety and Steve Rogers was like water and oil.

He knocks on the wooden door twice, out of habit and for the two deaths he could have prevented. He waits five seconds and hears the door unlocking as if it was on cue.

And if he thought everyone around him was playing a cruel joke on him, he was wrong. Because Peggy Carter’s sincere look of shock and surprise sent daggers into his heart. When would he stop feeling like he was doing all the wrong things?

Steve’s heart is pounding incessantly and he has to remind himself to slow his breathing. He puts on his most dashing smile and the Brooklyn accent that sounds more like Bucky than himself. “Agent Carter, I believe I owe you a dance.” He says, sounding nothing like himself and everything like who he wants to be.

Peggy’s reaction was the same the second time around. She folded her arms and narrowed her eyebrows with her bottom lip jutting out in a pout. “Steve?” She asks, in disbelief and with a whisper of agitation. “How are you alive?”

He knew that the first time around he had looked down at the ground, desperate for an excuse. But he knew better, and instead clucked his lips in a  _ tsk _ and held Peggy’s hand, leading them in. “Miss Carter, I doubt that’s any way to welcome a fella into your home.” He says, and once more it sounds nothing like himself. It sounds like a foreign man’s words. It sounds like words that he would have used if he hadn’t met the women of the future

Steve smiles at Peggy as he walked into the house. “Someone found me in the ice.” He said, using the same excuse he used the last time around.

They walked into the living room and Steve poured the two of them a glass of something strong enough for him to forget the situation. “You’ve been gone for seven months. People pronounced you dead! Where have you been all this time?”

He was better at hiding his distress the second time around, giving his reply so naturally that even he himself almost believed it. “I’ve been travelling.” Steve says cheerily “I’ve been in New York, but I could never stay away from my best girl, now can I?” 

Peggy just shakes her head at Steve and turns to put on that damnable record, the one that will make his mouth dry and his palms sweat no matter how many times he relives the moment.

And there it was, the  [ record ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuOoBvM0Vb8) that made him sick. It sounds like the end of things and the start of all things. It makes him want to dry heave, but he doesn’t know why.

He takes Peggy’s hand and dances with her. He’s more forthcoming this time around, because he can anticipate her actions and knows exactly how much he can push the limits of his mediocre dancing skills. He’s more daring, more feisty. A part of him believes that if he stands here and pretends like he never left, then maybe Tony and Natasha’s deaths never happened. 

Steve looked at Peggy and it made his blood run cold. Because where he should have seen a woman, he saw  _ his  _ destiny,  _ his  _ future,  _ his  _ wife. He saw an object, not a person. And he didn’t have to be a time travelling science experiment to know that was fundamentally wrong. 

But he is a weak man with a weak heart with a reluctance to face the real world. This is what Steve wanted all along, wasn’t it? This was his endgame. Peggy Carter and her perfectly styled lips and bright red lipstick.

The music ended with a swell, and Peggy smiled up at Steve. Steve smiled back, but he still felt empty. He still closed his eyes and saw the war years. He knew it would get better, now that everything was so far away from him. He knew that the first time around he had given her a chaste closed mouth kiss. But this time he took her by the waist and planted a hot, passionate kiss on her lips, mouth parting slyly.

Peggy pulls away abruptly but keeps the smile on her face and her cheeks rosy-red. “Do you have anywhere to be, Steve?” She asks on cue.

Steve shook his head and gives her a wide grin. “I’m right where I wanna be, Peggy.”

“You’re welcome to come and stay with me.” She said demurely.

Steve smiled bashfully. “I’d be honored.” He replied, moving to the bedroom instead of the kitchen.

* * *

What they did in the bedroom was not drinking glasses of wine in the afternoon and whiskey after dinner. They didn’t catch up on missing months. Instead, Steve led her to the bedroom and did something he had only dreamed about on nights after missions.

And so he doesn’t fall asleep in the guest room, but instead in Peggy’s room with lipstick stains on his neck and other questionable places, breathing heavily and body still tingling with aftershocks intertwined with guilt and muted regret. He pulls the duvet up to cover more of his fully exposed body and pulls Peggy into another kiss.

“G’night, Peg.” Steve said, drifting off to sleep in Peggy’s bed, which still smelled like another man’s cologne. 


	3. third time's a charm

Steve Rogers wakes up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart, but also with a headache and with something too close to a hangover for his liking.

He reaches out to see that the other side of the mattress was cold, and then he jumps out of bed, eyes scanning the room wildly. His heartbeat accelerates and then plummets once he realizes what happens. He takes a seat at the edge of his bed and holds his head in his hands.

_ Fucking hell,  _ he thinks, along with a string of expletives that even Tony Stark would frown at.

Maybe the first time was a fluke, but the same day repeating twice without indication was a sign of something a lot worse.

He steps into the bathroom and takes a shower for what feels like the third one in the last few hours and stays under the hot water until someone comes pounding on the door. He was  _ Captain America,  _ for Christ’s sake. He could figure out this problem if he just put his mind to it. But first, he’d need a plan.

He stepped out of the bathroom many moments later with a newfound determination to break free of this cycle. When he looked on his bed, his uniform and the other objects were laid out on his bed just like the last times. He got dressed slowly, trying to keep his actions as close to the original as possible. But before he stepped out of the hotel room, he took with him his pocket notebook, the same one that had scribbles of 21st century moves he had written down all those lifetimes ago. He wanted to make sure that he had a clear paper trail of all the different instances this day could go.

And when he steps out into the hall, he lets the couple on the elevator ride down without him.

The procedure was simple, or at least it was in Steve’s mind. His goal was to break out of this increasingly constricting time loop, and he had to do that carefully. He remembered Tony going on a spiel about how dangerous messing with the flow of time could be, so he decided to proceed with caution.

He tried to keep his actions similar to the original but also varied enough that the people around him would give him a different reaction to the one he had seen before. He rode down the elevator alone and tried to avoid the receptionist’s question, but she stopped him all the same.

“How do you feel about Tony Stark and Natalia Romanoff’s death?” The receptionist asks politely, completely ignorant to how the question made Steve claw at his heart.

He should have just given her a frown and walked away, but instead he glared at her. “First of all,” Steve says, the air coming out of him defeatedly. “Her name is Natasha.”

While before the receptionist had just given him a curious look, now she had stared at him with an open mouth. And since he had stopped right outside the elevators, that gave the reporter an opportunity to approach him further from the exit as planned.

The receptionist and the reporter crowded around him, but he pushed through the two of them and made his way to the exit without causing more havoc.

He opened the limousine door and the driver rolled up the window as usual.

* * *

In the whole experiment that Steve had set up around these series of events, Bucky was the only variable he couldn’t tie down. He understood the reactions of the people around him very simply. The couple in the elevator were embarrassed to ask the questions, the receptionist polite, the reporter goading, the driver wary, and Sam and Bruce respectful.

Bucky was the only person that Steve couldn’t read properly. It was what drew him to Bucky all those years ago.

When Bucky saved him from an alley the first time around, Steve didn’t know why. He asked Bucky many years down the line, but Bucky’s answer always changed. Was it social obligation? Pity? He saw the way Bucky looked at him, the same way he looked at him many years into the future right before Steve faced the past.

Bucky’s expression was one reserved for Steve. Eyes downturned, shoulders slumped, a closed mouth smile accompanied with glittering eyes. Bucky’s face always looked like this in his dreams, because he always smiled too big or not at all when cameras were around. 

Steve didn’t know Bucky’s feelings that day, and that was what made him the most unpredictable one in this whole experience. He had looked up at Bucky’s expression three different times now, and he saw something different every single time. He noticed the old Brooklyn accent the first time around, and Steve thought that maybe he had been teasing him. The second time around, he saw Bucky’s smile. He immediately identified it as a sad smile. It was the same smile he wore when he told Steve he was being drafted.

But it was the third time Steve had looked at Bucky in this unfamiliar light and he noticed Bucky’s eyes. They were slightly glassy and tinged red around the edges. And his heart is so sick of letting people down. Because Bucky was his best friend, and if anyone knew he was going to be with Peggy, it would be him.

Steve felt more than that. He didn’t just feel like he was letting down Bucky., he felt like he was  _ abandoning  _ him. 

But that didn’t feel right. Because he was meant to be with Peggy Carter, not a tired soldier in the 21st century, and  _ definitely  _ not in that way.

And so he sticks to the script and exchanges recycled words, trying not to think about how the stars could fall and he wouldn’t be by Bucky’s side. He still felt like he was betraying Bucky, but he never pledged allegiance to Bucky in the first place. He probably just felt guilty he wasn’t telling Bucky the full story, that was all.

After that, you know the drill. It’s 2012 New York City, a few stops along the way, Vormir, and then springtime, 1946.

* * *

Peggy opens the door and a different feeling takes root in Steve’s heart, something he hadn’t felt the first times around. It twists right through the love and yearning quicker than he can slit a throat.

Peggy, much like everyone else in his life, is dead.

“Agent Carter,” he says, remembering the funeral and seeing her dead body in a casket. “I believe I owe you a dance.”

“Steve?” She asks for the third time around, just the slightest bit agitated. “How are you alive?”

“Someone found me in the ice.” Steve responds as they walk into the living room. Steve can’t shake the fact that he’s missing something. Something was off about this whole situation, written in giant red letters right in front of his face.

“You’ve been gone for seven months. People pronounced you dead! Where have you been all this time?” Peggy exclaimed, and Steve tried not to think about how the sound felt like grating in his ears. His heart was beating faster and faster, another reminder that he was alive where many others weren’t.

“I’ve been… travelling. I’ve been in New York, but I could never stay away from my best girl, now can I?” Steve replied, as if he had been here all this time. As if he never attended her funeral. As if he never kissed her niece.

Then the  [ record ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuOoBvM0Vb8) comes on, and Steve just can’t  _ focus,  _ for fuck’s sake. He’s dancing with Peggy and living his dream but it starts to feel more and more like a nightmare the more times he relives it. Because even if Peggy was alive now, she was dead to him for seven odd years. 

It was the same way that Tony and Natasha would be born a few years from now, but they would still be dead to him. Their lives here do not cancel out their lives there. Steve swallows hard. The sharp and painful realization makes his mouth fill up with a sour taste. It feels like he had sex with a corpse the last time around. 

He sighs as the music swells to a close, because thinking as if Peggy Carter was a dead woman walking was no fair to her. She lived until ninety before, and she’ll live until ninety again.

But one rogue action changes all things. Peggy lived until ninety in a world where she never married Steve Rogers. And Steve knew too well that the people close to him had statistically short life spans.

_ This is what Steve wanted all along, wasn’t it? This was his endgame. Peggy and him. _

Steve kisses Peggy chastely as the music ends, mind still on the deaths he had to bear witness to.

He didn’t see Natasha die, but he saw her body in Vormir. He saw Tony Stark give his life for everyone else’s. He was the pallbearer at Peggy’s funeral.

But something is sticking with him. Something that won’t go away. 

_ Bucky. _

Bucky, the unpredictable variable. He saw Bucky fall to his death and then resurrect a lifetime later. Bucky lived, even if he was the closest one to Steve. And he was still alive now. It makes his mouth go dry.

“Do you have anywhere to be, Steve?” Peggy asks, jolting Steve out of his reverie. He becomes acutely aware how her arm is stroking Steve’s. Was she doing that the first time around? The second?

Peggy raised her eyebrows as Steve didn’t respond. He knew the first time around, he responded with something coy like,  _ I’ve got nowhere else to be _ . Now, he wasn’t too sure.

She held onto Steve’s hand as Steve felt heat rising to his cheeks. This was a different response to the ones he had received before. “You’re welcome to stay in  _ my  _ room, if you like.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until marriage to do that?” Steve joked.

Peggy rolled her eyes. “I’m Catholic, not an 18th century conservative.”

Steve smiled and nodded, thinking back to her funeral, her eulogy given by Sharon. “I’ll just take the guest room, thanks.” He replies, walking up the hall.

The last thing he hears before closing the door is Peggy call out to him. “How did you know I had a guest room?” She asks.

Steve curses silently, poking his head out the door. “You must’ve told me… while we were in the war.” He offered.

Peggy walked down the hall and opened the door further suspiciously. Steve forgot he was playing with a British special intelligence spy. “No, I don’t think I did.”

“Lucky guess?” Steve asks.

Peggy’s stone cold demeanor immediately softens and she breaks into a smile. “You must be tired from travelling.” She says, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Go take a nap.”

Steve nods and shuts the door, immediately going to work on desecrating the room.

He was still working on the assumption that he would go to bed and wake up back in the 21st century, and he needed to find out why. He had done everything by the book, but nothing strange or unusual had happened for him to believe that time as he knew it was successfully restored. He wanted to find something,  _ anything,  _ that would make him believe that he wasn’t going insane.

Okay. He was tearing up a guest bedroom in the 1940s British suburbs. So he might be going insane, and he also might not find anything he was looking for.

What Steve did find however, was something he didn’t want to know, but deep down always needed to have known.

It’s a faded photo underneath the bed, lodged between the slats of the bed frame and the mattress itself. It’s a smiling girl that Steve instantly knows as Peggy Carter with a man’s arm thrown around her shoulder. He’s taken back to a familiar memory, with a Smithsonian exhibit and a new world to discover.

He sighs heavily and flops down onto the bed, drifting off to sleep and smelling the cologne he knew didn’t belong to him.


	4. at any and all costs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was particularly difficult to write. hope you enjoy xo

Steve Rogers woke up in an unfamiliar room so unfamiliar, it had become familiar to him. There was a familiarity to the gasp of air that entered his lungs, along with his body in sweat as if he was coming out of a nightmare and with a heaving, heavy heart. 

No matter where he goes, the heavy heart will follow him.

He let out hot and heavy gasps of air before coming to his senses and reached for his notebook. Immediately scribbling down observations.

For one, it was established that he got sent back to the 21st century every time he went to sleep. So he just had to test that theory even further. It was five in the morning and Bruce Banner was not expecting him until nine, so he reached for his cell phone and made a call.

Bruce picks up on the third ring. “Hi, Steve.” he says groggily. Steve doesn’t have to be a genius to know that he had just woken Bruce up from his slumber.

“Can we reschedule the plans for today?” Steve asks, biting down hard on his lip.

Steve hears a rustling of sheets and a distant clatter from the other side of the telephone. “Something wrong?” Bruce asks worriedly.

“Everything’s okay. But… I’m not doing too well. After Tony’s funeral, and Natasha’s death… well, you know.” He replies.

Bruce stays quiet on the line and considers this. “We can do this in a day, if that’s alright with you. I understand you need recovery time, but we need to act fast to preserve the integrity of the separate timelines.”

Steve nods. A day would be more than enough time to sort this mess out.

The first thing he does is book a train ticket to the nearest station to Bleeker Street, Manhattan.

* * *

“You’re… stuck in a time loop.” Doctor Stephen Strange says, as Steve warily watches as a levitating teapot pours him a cup of Earl grey. 

Steve runs his hands through his hair. “I had no one else to go to. People told me there was a man who could manipulate time. Someone who fought alongside us in the war.”

Strange raises an eyebrow. “No one else to go to?” He asks indignantly. “I should have been the first person you went to! I’m the sorcerer supreme, for crying out loud!” He exclaims.

Steve frowns. “I don’t know what that means, but I hope it means you’ll help me?”

Strange stands up and starts pacing around the room with his eyes shut and head darting wildly. After a moment, he flings his eyes wide open and frowns. “I don’t see it.” He says simply.

“See what?” Steve asks.

“ _ It.”  _ Strange reiterates forcefully. “I don’t see any anomalies, indications of a time loop, a repeating future! I don’t see any way that time as we know it has gotten corrupted.”

“Yeah, because I’m the one who’s stuck in a time loop, not you.” Steve replied.

Strange raised his eyebrows, looking pointedly at Steve. “Are you telling me how to do my job, Captain Rogers?”

Steve stood up to meet Strange and folded his arms. 

Strange sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Time loops are complicated. And they don’t work… like that. Time loops can be used so that someone can live even after they’ve been killed. And either way, most of the people who got stuck in a time loop never get out. We don’t have any information on them. And these people are  _ sorcerers _ , not normal people like you.”

“How do I fix it?” Steve replied.

“You’re not stuck in a time loop. I don’t  _ see  _ a constantly looping timeline.” Strange countered. “You were one of the only people alive before we were resurrected. Maybe your experiences are just a side effect of the battle.”

Steve slammed his hands down onto the table, causing the teacups to clatter. “Every time I go see Peggy Carter and stay the night at her house, I wake up the next morning back in the hotel room!” Steve exclaimed.

Strange gave Steve an unreadable look and continued pacing around the floors of sanctum. “Agent Margaret Carter?” Strange asked.

Steve blinked warily and nodded.

Strange let out an exhale of air. “I’ll walk you out, Captain Rogers.”

Steve furrowed his brow, posture slumping as the realization that Stephen Strange couldn’t help him.

And as Steve stood on the New York Pavement and Strange inside the sanctum, Strange said just one more thing to him.

“Steve?” Strange asked, as Steve began his journey back.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Strange sighed and looked around. “Have you ever considered the fact that… you’re stuck in a time loop because you’re in the wrong timeline?” He asked.

Steve frowned. “Goodbye, Doctor.” He said, walking away. If Strange wasn’t going to help him, he’d rather just go instead of wasting his time. He had other errands to run before the sun went down.

* * *

In the Upper East Side of Manhattan was once the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum an era ago. But then New York City’s one and only Steve Rogers defrosted, saved the world from aliens, and then saved it from aliens again.

To cut a long story short, what was once a design museum became the permanent Captain America exhibit operating under the title of the Steven G. Rogers Smithsonian Honorary Museum. After his belongings’ stay in the museum of natural history, they went back to New York permanently. The only condition of this arrangement being that Steve was allowed to take out items of his possession if he needed to.

He entered the museum that bore his name through the back, snaking up stairs and trapising down hallways in order to reach the head office where he filled out a request form for his belongings. The director of the museum had previously joked that there was no need for Steve to go through all the red tape of borrowing his items, but Steve had a penchant for procedure.

He had requested for two files that were almost rarely never on display due to the sensitivity of the information. They were two dossiers on two different people. One on Maragaret Carter, the other on James Buchanan Barnes.

On the train ride back he read the two files up against the setting sun, painting the pages golden as he heaved a heavy breath.

The two files made Steve feel alone and detached from the rest of the world for two completely different reasons.

Bucky’s file was nothing that Steve hadn’t known before. He had fallen to his supposed death after Steve failed to grab his hand, working as HYDRA’s personal assassin for seventy odd years. He meets the newly resurrected Steve who fights him on a helicarrier and saves his life ultimately. He trapises around Europe before settling in Bucharest where him and Steve meet again and battle against T’Challa of Wakanda. Steve becomes a fugitive for Bucky, and they battle with Iron Man. He spends the rest of his time in Wakanda for recovery before awakening to fight against Thanos, inevitably dying in the decimation and being left behind five years later.

Steve read this file a thousand times over even if he knew how it ended. No matter how many times he stared at the words they seemed to never change. It made his breathing heavy, knowing that he leaves Bucky in the end.

Steve read through Peggy’s file briefly, skimming over the important parts that were pertinent to the situation at hand. She had a husband who was saved through Steve’s actions. She had kids, and they were beautiful. Her kids had kids, and they were beautiful too. It made Steve feel impossibly guilty, like he was taking something that wasn’t his.

And as he pulls into the train station, he comes across a small footnote in the dossier.

One moment far into Steve’s freezing, Margaret Carter takes a vial of Steve’s blood and pours it into the ocean.

* * *

Steve’s phone lights up with a chime indicative of a text notification by the time he steps into the lobby of the hotel where he was staying at. He turns it on, and there’s just one message sent by Bucky.

_ Are you free?  _ The message reads.

Steve takes a deep breath. This was not something he anticipated, not a movement in a well timed coordination of events. This was new and exciting, but still so fundamentally Bucky.

_ What’s up?  _ Steve writes back, heart beating in his chest. The truth of the matter was that he did not want to meet Bucky. He didn’t want to come face to face with Bucky Barnes and his snakelike eyes. He looks at Bucky and he sees a mirror of sadness and something deeper. 

_ Can you meet me by the lakeshore?  _ Bucky writes back immediately.

_ Ten minutes.  _ Steve writes back, ascending the hotel elevator. 

He steps into his hotel room and finds the sweat drenched sheets replaced and the room smelling like linen and jasmine tea. He changes into another skin tight t-shirt and throws the two dossiers onto the sheets with a heave of breath.

Ten minutes later, Steve is standing around like an idiot for what could be no less than fifteen minutes by the time he hears a rustling in the bushes. He whips his head around to come face to face with the man he knew better than himself sometimes.

“How long have you been standing there?” Steve asks Bucky.

Bucky shrugs, making a so-so gesture with his hand. “Super secret spy.” He says as way of an answer. Steve blinks back at Bucky, and his eyes appear almost shiny.

Bucky takes a step forward into the light. Steve takes a breath and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “So.” Steve begins. “Why did you bring me out here?” He asks.

Bucky’s eyes dart to the left. It’s reminiscent of their time in Bucharest, when Bucky looked more like a wounded animal than a human being.

“Are you going to leave me?” Bucky blurts out so fast that Steve almost misses it. 

Bucky’s eyes widen like a deer caught in the headlights. “I mean,” Bucky begins again. “Are you going to leave  _ us _ . Humanity. The twenty-first century. The Avengers.” Bucky says with a frown.

Steve’s head is spinning so fast he doesn’t have a proper thought to latch onto. “The Avengers don’t exist right now.”

“I’m right here.” Bucky retorts.

“You’re not an Avenger.” Steve responds bluntly. That gives Bucky pause and he takes a step back.

“Last time I checked you yelled  _ Avengers, assemble  _ on the battlefield.” Bucky quips back.

“Tony is dead.” Steve tells Bucky.

Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“And Natasha.” Steve adds with a sigh. “Tony and Natasha are dead.” Steve repeats.

“You never answered my fucking question.” Bucky says with growing irritation.

“Why are you so bothered?” Steve asks, the heat rising up in his face.

“Answer the question.” Bucky retorts petulantly.

Steve glances at Bucky. “Fine! I’m going to use the extra Pym particle and go back to the forties to be with Peggy.” He tells Bucky.

Bucky’s eyes widen for a moment and then his shoulders slump. After a long moment he lifts his head and looks at Steve. “Take me with you.” He says.

Steve blinks and stays silent.

“C’mon Steve.” Bucky says with a grin decades old. “Go marry Peggy Carter. I’ll find a young dame and we’ll have houses beside each other. Just as we always had planned.”

Steve let out an exhale of breath. He remembers these plans. Him and Bucky living as neighbours with their gorgeous trophy wives dangling on their arms. They talked on these plans when they were doubling over from alcohol poisoning and in hot Brooklyn summers when they had less dollars than years on their lives. 

They were dreams, never plans. Steve always knew that they would never live to make it to the far end of twenty nine, he just never expected it to end like this.

Steve shakes his head. “It’s not your future, Buck.” He says simply.

Bucky scowls. “Who the hell are you to dictate my goddamn future?” He says, turning on his heel and walking onto the pavement road, leaving Steve in the dust.

* * *

And later when Steve is in his hotel room getting ready for bed, he prays to any cosmic force that he wakes up and gets the chance to repeat the day because he can’t face Bucky in the morning.

But praying doesn’t work like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick update: i'm currently in the process of moving countries. apologies for any inconsistent upload times for the next week or so :)


	5. stick to the script

Steve Rogers woke up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart, still chasing the dead corpses away in his half awake dreams.

He wakes with a start, turning over on his side and checking the time on his phone.

It was the next day at ten in the morning, and the time loop has been resolved.

He curses to himself silently, because today was truly the day. He would go back to the five places in time where they took the infinity stones and return them. And at the end, he would live a long and fulfilling life with Peggy Carter and never come back.

But there was a difference. Bucky  _ knew _ . He knew that he was never coming back. He knew that he would walk onto that pedestal eternally young and come back with a lifetime between themselves.

Steve couldn’t help but feel like he was making the wrong choice. He feels like he’s barreling towards his doom. And for a fleeing, selfish moment, he wishes that the time loop was still repeating so he doesn’t see Bucky eye to eye. He doesn’t want to stare at Bucky’s desperate eyes, the same eyes that make him feel lost at sea and lost all at once.

He feels selfish, going back in time just to be with the woman he loves. But damn it all, he had saved the world more times than he would have liked, and he deserved this. He deserved to start a family and get married. And pretend, just for a little while, like he wasn’t responsible for the deaths of his best friends.

Because he didn’t do anything when he saw Tony’s suicidal glint. Because he didn’t triple check every single planet they were going to. Because he was their captain, for fuck’s sake.

He showers for as long as he dares, the hot water steaming up the mirrors. He stays under the water until his skin turns wrinkly. Not by old age, not just yet. By the time he finishes showering and towel dries himself until his hair is soft and fluffy, his shield, a suit of armor, the infinity gauntlet, and Mjolnir are lying on his bed just as they were yesterday.   
  


He swings open the door with a heave and walks outside to the limousine, lobby and elevator devoid of reporters, receptionists, and prying couples’ questions. It’s quicker to walk to the guillotine this time around.

As he drives through the city, he grimaces. He thinks back to how once upon a time he believed this mission could kill him. Hell, he wanted it to kill him. But he’s done it three times now and barely had a scratch on him, which forced him to confront  _ what happens next _ .

Steve knows what happens next. Him and Peggy Carter-Rogers with lots and lots of children and growing old and never picking up the shield ever again.

But could he do that, if every moment he closed his eyes he saw the battlefield? If he saw corpses and dead friends at every corner.

He might as well just die, too.

* * *

Bucky doesn’t walk up to Steve right away, not like how he had done before. Steve has to walk all the way down to the lake and tap him on the shoulder, and even then Bucky hesitates before staring at Steve.

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” Steve says, the words decades old and centuries morose.

Bucky sighs with a placid, tight lipped smile. “How can I?” He asks, voice low and raspy. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.” 

Steve notices that Bucky’s eyes were tinged red and the bags under his eyes were more pronounced. He wonders if his eyes were red and his bags were heavy, too.

He wants to say anything that will make Bucky understand, and a part of him also wants Bucky to say something to him that will make him stay. But there’s a predetermined script, one that he doesn’t quite agree with but must follow nonetheless.

So Steve hugs Bucky. Because there are no words to say to someone you’ve been looking for more than you’ve been talking to. He hugs him with everything left in his body, because he wants to grip Bucky’s shoulders so tight and be certain that he wouldn’t crumble into very dust in front of his eyes again. Because its their last hug, and this time both of them know it.

Bucky doesn’t let go. And Steve doesn’t either. And they could have stayed like this forever if life didn’t get in the middle of it.

Steve steps onto the platform, all his weapons and objects in hand. It was time to do one last mission, because no one else would. Bruce Banner began the procedure, but everything was drowned out by the beating of his heart.

And then before he knew it, it was 2012 in New York City.

* * *

It’s springtime, 1946 and the clouds are grey and the sky is moments away from rain. The first thing Steve wonders is how many of them survived to see a world without Thanos. He wonders how many people had died because of him.

Steve walks through the cobblestone path and pushes the creaky iron gate open. He reminds himself that Natasha and Tony hadn’t been born yet, and therefore they cannot die. And so even if every bone in his body feels out of place, he must stay. He has to stay in this society of corpses because it's the only thing that makes sense.

It’s penance. It’s payback for all the sins that crawl on his back.

He stands outside the wooden door and knocks on it twice, one for each death he could have prevented. Steve hears someone unlocking the door from the other side.

And there she is, Agent Margaret Carter not a day older than Steve’s memory.

He goes through the same spiel he had committed to his heart. He tells Agent Carter that he owes her a dance. She asks him a barrage of questions, and they dance to the  [ record ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuOoBvM0Vb8) that will eternally make his heart pound without remorse. It was the song that played when Bucky stepped into Steve’s new life with insistence and determination. It was the song that played when the link between 21st century Steve and Bucky was drawn.

Steve dances with Peggy, because that was what they came here for, because he was here to stay. There was a part of him that held a twinge of regret on what he had left behind, but the reasoning for his actions comes back clear as day. Tony went back in time and righted some wrongs and saved half the universe and still came back with a wife and kids. And if he could do that, so can Steve.

It’s easy to ignore the fact that Tony paid for that with his life. 

The music ended with a swell, and Peggy smiled up at Steve. His heart still felt heavy. It felt raw and cut wide open, like it did in the first few moments after taking Erskine’s serum. He kisses Peggy for what he knows is the first time of many.

“Do you have anywhere to be, Steve?” Peggy asks Steve with a soft grin.

Steve shook his head. “I’m right where I wanna be, Peggy.” He tells her, a half truth.

“You’re welcome to come and stay with me.” She said demurely.

Steve smiled bashfully. “I’d be honored.” He replied.

In this instance it felt much more like the first loop than anything before. It’s incredibly easy to pretend like Peggy doesn’t marry another man. Because ignorance is bliss, but avoiding facts you don’t agree with is ecstasy.

Peggy had set him up in one of her guest rooms, and Steve kissed Peggy goodnight with a grin. The time loop was broken and he was here to stay.

“G’night, Peg.” He said through a tired tongue.

Peggy smiled and raised her hand to caress Steve’s cheek. “Goodnight, Steve.” She said, turning left at the end of the hall and going into her room. Steve opened the door to his room and fell asleep on the bed almost immediately.

The last thing he does before going to bed is tearing up the photo wedged between the mattress and the wooden slats, Mister Carter’s smiling face a mess of paper shreds.

* * *

In the morning, Steve Rogers woke up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart. 

_ Fucking hell. _


	6. sleep for the soldiers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who knew moving countries could be so exhausting. sorry for the late update, but updates are bound to be more infrequent from here on out with school and the like :^)

Steve Rogers woke up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart. 

He breathes out a breath of exhaustion and throws himself into the day with anguish.

It resets back to the day he was slated to return the stones, the whole interaction with Doctor Stephen Strange seemingly never happened.

He rides down the elevator and answers nonsensical responses to the couple in the elevator, the receptionist with too much time on her hands, and the reporter with nothing better to do.

And he looks into Bucky's eyes and tries to think of something to say. And in every single iteration of this day, he will never have the words to use. Steve could not understand for the life of him how there are words that can bend bridges and make grown men cry, but not a single string of syllables that can dictate how Bucky makes Steve feel.

It's a feeling deep down in his heart. One that he had been trying to cut free. It's knowing that they'll always be their for each other, and perhaps it was time for a change. It's a smile in the dark and amicable silence. The feeling is akin to when he pulled warm sheets from the dryer for the first time.

Perhaps, the feeling is love.

But he goes back to 1940 and sees Peggy Carter.

And he does it again, but this time he has a bouquet of flowers.

And again, but for the sixth time that Steve does it he doesn't dare go to sleep. He gets to five nights on coffee and caffeine pills smuggled under the folds of his uniform before he finds himself in that hotel room.

On the seventh time he swears Bucky is crying. And when he wakes up Peggy Carter feels like a faraway dream where nothing ever seems quite real.

The eighth time he goes through the time loop he's bedraggled and can't quite get his bearings. He can't estimate the last time he got a proper night's rest. He's sick and tired of knowing that he'll look at Peggy for the eighth time but it would feel like the first time for her. It was infinitely worse than when she had dementia in the twenty first century.

And Steve admits it. He's sick and tired and just wants to go home. He wants to wake up and not have the day repeat. But he has tried everything, and the universe rejects him.

The ninth time he wakes up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart he's ready to give up. Because Peggy Carter is the great love of his life, but he wants to go to sleep even more than he wants to see her.

He reaches over to his smartphone and uses the same excuse he had used once before.

Bruce picks up on the third ring. “Hi, Steve.” he says groggily. Steve doesn’t have to be a genius to know that he had just woken Bruce up from his slumber.

“Can we reschedule the plans for today?” Steve asks, biting down hard on his lip.

Steve hears a rustling of sheets and a distant clatter from the other side of the telephone. “Something wrong?” Bruce asks worriedly.

“Everything’s okay. But… I’m not doing too well. After Tony’s funeral, and Natasha’s death… well, you know.” He replies.

Bruce stays quiet on the line and considers this. “We can do this in a day, if that’s alright with you. I understand you need recovery time, but we need to act fast to preserve the integrity of the separate timelines.”

Steve mumbles a quick word of appreciation and then disconnects their call. This time around, instead of taking a short train ride to Bleeker street first thing in the morning, he texts Bucky instead.

_ Want to go for a walk? _

* * *

Bucky is wearing the same bomber jacket that he wore at Tony's funeral. According to Sam, Bucky had to sit through a strict reprimand on why wearing a bomber jacket and a half updo was improper apparel for a funeral, but Steve found it funny.

Bucky's face looks the same as it always does these days. He has a gentle smile dancing on his face but his eyes are perpetually tense and darting around. He keeps his metal hand in his pocket but his flesh hand is loose. Gone were the days of Bucky's playful smirk with an eyebrow hitched high up. The last time Steve had heard Bucky laugh was years back, and it was a thing of uncertainty and hesitation. And above all things, it was because of an anecdote from their youth.

The tension in Steve's shoulders immediately lighten as he catches Bucky's gaze.

Bucky walks over to Steve with a hesitant grin. "Any reason why you wanted to meet at Central park?" He asked.

Steve smiled. "Haven't gotten time to properly talk to you." He said, searching Bucky's face for a reaction.

This was the Bucky that didn't know that Steve was going to abandon him for Peggy Carter. This was the Bucky that had just fought in Wakanda a few days earlier. This was the perpetually young, eternally tortured version of the man that Steve had come to know.

Bucky rolled his eyes, mouth locked in a straight line. "When were you planning to call? Before or after I turned to dust?" He jokes.

Steve chuckles but it feels like his stomach is in knots. He didn't even get a proper goodbye, for how could you say goodbye to someone you had been chasing your whole life? Even when they were kids, it felt like Steve was always running after Bucky. And when Bucky called out Steve's name, all Steve knew was to call Bucky's name back.

But no one's running anymore.

It seems almost like a cop-out. To stay in this world, to befriend this brand new Bucky Barnes. To ask if he wants to move into a Brooklyn apartment just down the road from their old one. (The Smithsonian had claimed the original. It was a museum now.)

It's not right. There is simply no way for Steve to stay in this world glittering with memorials for Iron Man and the ghost of Black Widow haunting his every step.

It's not right, but it feels simple. To stay here with Bucky, and just pretend like he doesn't see the battlefield every time he closes his eyes.

They walk around the park and chat for many moments after. Steve comes to learn some new things about Bucky. He really likes goats, but horses freak him out. He loves farming, but it isn't something he could see himself doing for prolonged periods of time.

But most of all, Bucky loves the rain. He loves the rain in the summer, when the air afterwards is hot and humid but smells like spring. He loves it when the sky is grey but the light is yellow and white. He loves the way it makes the world seem brand new.

After hearing these things, Steve knows that he isn't the one with memory loss, but it feels like he had known these facts many years before.

In turn, he tells Bucky some new things about him. Steve loves sushi but he doesn't eat it with soy sauce or wasabi. He likes riding the New York subway just before midnight. He doesn't mind being recognized, but he prefers to stay anonymous. Once on a stakeout mission with Natasha, he told her a story about Bucky.

Bucky glances at Steve. "What story?" He asks cautiously.

Steve shrugs. "The one about the rabbit." He says with a measured glance. A brief moment of recognition sparks in Bucky's eyes, and it feels like a lightning bolt through Steve's chest.

"I remember that one." Bucky says with a smile.

They were just kids when a rabbit made its way into Steve's bedroom. If Steve wasn't dirt-poor and lived on the second floor of the apartment complex, it would have made more sense. But Bucky was looking at the newspaper when they shrieked with excitement.

Bucky was determined to capture the rabbit and the two of them ran around the whole apartment trying to keep it as a pet. Bucky made Steve promise that once they got the rabbit, both Steve and Bucky would have joint custody of it. Steve agreed with a grin.

The rabbit kept jumping around and the two boys chased it for hours. They were determined to keep the rabbit, as it hadn't jumped out the window thus far. But once Steve and Bucky paused to catch for breath, the rabbit escaped through the window the way it came.

The story stirred up unfamiliar emotions in Steve, ones that were warm and unfamiliar. They made him feel unsafe, as if he had been plunged into ice cold water and left to drown.

His breath stops as he realizes the sensation. He glances at Bucky and it's the same way he felt when he nose dived the airplane into the arctic ocean. It was the same adrenaline rush with the same sense of terror. 

Looking at Bucky was like knowing how Romeo and Juliet ends. It's knowing a tragedy is bound to happen before it even occurs.

They walk and chat for a little while more until Steve bids goodbye and makes his way back to Doctor Strange. A part of him feels mournful that Bucky would never remember this day once the timeline resets when it’s bound to.

* * *

Meeting with Doctor Strange is just as infuriating the second time around. 

Strange stands up and starts pacing around the room with his eyes shut and head darting wildly. After a moment, he flings his eyes wide open and frowns. “I don’t see it.” He says simply. It’s just as irritating as it was the first time he heard it. Steve’s respect for Tony Stark grows exponentially as he can barely fathom how Tony was able to be trapped in space and cooperate with him.

“See what?” Steve asks, though he already knows Strange’s response.

“ _ It.”  _ Strange reiterates forcefully. “I don’t see any anomalies, indications of a time loop, a repeating future! I don’t see any way that time as we know it has gotten corrupted.”

“Yeah, because I’m the one who’s stuck in a time loop, not you.” Steve replied.

Strange raised his eyebrows, looking pointedly at Steve. “Are you telling me how to do my job, Captain Rogers?”

Steve stood up to meet Strange and folded his arms, anger rising to the surface like a teapot boiling full of water and steam.

Strange sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Time loops are complicated. And they don’t work… like that. Time loops can be used so that someone can live even after they’ve been killed. And either way, most of the people who got stuck in a time loop never get out. We don’t have any information on them. And these people are  _ sorcerers _ , not normal people like you.”

“How do I fix it?” Steve replied.

“You’re not stuck in a time loop. I don’t  _ see  _ a constantly looping timeline.” Strange countered. “You were one of the only people alive before we were resurrected. Maybe your experiences are just a side effect of the battle.”

Steve slammed his hands down onto the table, causing the teacups to clatter. “Every time I go see Peggy Carter and stay the night at her house, I wake up the next morning back in the hotel room!” Steve exclaimed.

Strange gave Steve an unreadable look and continued pacing around the floors of sanctum. “Agent Margaret Carter?” Strange asked.

Steve blinked warily and nodded.

Strange let out an exhale of air. “I’ll walk you out, Captain Rogers.”

Steve furrowed his brow, posture slumping as the realization that Stephen Strange couldn’t help him.

And as Steve stood on the New York Pavement and Strange inside the sanctum, Strange said just one more thing to him.

“Steve?” Strange asked, as Steve began his journey back.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Strange sighed and looked around. “Have you ever considered the fact that… you’re stuck in a time loop because you’re in the wrong timeline?” He asked.

The first time around, Steve had kept on walking. Maybe it was because he was so sick and tired of repeating the same day or perhaps it was because he met with Bucky earlier in the day, but the words stopped him short.

"What did you say?" Steve asks, turning around and walking closer to the door.

Stephen Strange crosses his arms, speaking in the same New York candor as always. “I said, ‘have you ever considered the fact that you’re stuck in a time loop because you’re in the wrong timeline’?”

Steve steps closer to the doorway and Strange opens the door wider to let him in. "That can't be possible." Steve says with a chuckle.

"There have been testimonials of it happening numerous amounts of times. Especially with those who are novices at time travel and other branches of the mystic arts." Strange replies, as the two of them take a seat back in the sitting room of the New York Sanctum.

"That doesn't explain what's happening with me." Steve says back to Strange.

"Well, it seems pretty dead on your situation to me." Strange counters.

Steve widens his eyes at Strange. "Well, it still doesn't explain how to solve my situation!" He exclaims.

Strange holds his head in his hands. "Aren't you listening?" He says, speaking slowly as if talking to a small child. "You're not in the timeline you're supposed to be. In other words, you're overstaying your welcome."

"What if where I am is exactly where I'm supposed to be?" Steve replies.

Strange looks at Steve empathetically. "If you are exactly where you’re supposed to be, you shouldn’t be stuck in a time loop.”

Steve considers this for a moment and then looks at Strange. “What am I supposed to do then?”

  
“Go home, Steve. Wherever that may be.” Strange replies.

Steve nods his head, accepting at last that home may not be exactly where he wants to be.


	7. this is how it ends

This is how it ends.

It’s springtime, 1946 and the clouds are grey and the sky is moments away from rain. Oxford once felt like coming home, but now it felt like a kiss goodnight.

He recognizes the house from his sleepless dreams and this fickle waking nightmare. Sharon Carter had showed it to him on one of the slower days at the S.H.I.E.L.D agency. It was a large, ancestral home that looked like it had more stories than him. It was where families breathed, and Steve had accepted that he was just not a family man.

He walks through the cobblestone path and pushes the creaky iron gate open for the last time. His heart is still hammering, but he also feels at ease. Because in this world, Natasha and Tony hadn’t been born yet, and therefore they cannot die. He hopes this timeline serves them well. He hopes they live long happy lives.

He stands outside the wooden door and knocks on it twice, one for each death he could have prevented. Steve hears someone unlocking the door from the other side.

And there she is, Agent Margaret Carter not a day older than Steve’s memory. She looks like she stepped out of a photograph, a runway, or perhaps a hallucination.

One last time.

“Agent Carter,” Steve says, thinking back to all the times he thought he was doing the right thing. It makes sense now. This was never a homecoming but a farewell. “I believe I owe you a dance.” He says softly.

Steve almost felt inclined to fold his arms at the same moment Peggy does so. He had seen her do it a million times over. He was almost certain he could recreate it in his memories. Peggy frowned and folded her arms, questions rolling off of her insistently.

“Steve?” She asks, just the slightest bit agitated. “How are you alive?”

He takes Peggy’s hand, as she leads him into the room one last time.

Steve smiles at Peggy. “Someone found me in the ice.” He said, leaving out the part where they found him in the ice seventy years later. Things started to feel more final. Now that he knew for sure that he was never coming back and he was not going to have a life with Peggy, he tried to savor every moment possible.

“You’ve been gone for seven months. People pronounced you dead! Where have you been all this time?” Peggy exclaimed, as they were led into the living room. 

Steve tried to hide his distress upon hearing this question, for he had been gone for seven  _ decades _ , not seven months.

“I’ve been… travelling.” Steve decides on, eschewing the fact he had been travelling continents and centuries. “I’ve been in New York, but I could never stay away from my best girl, now can I?” Steve replied, as if he had been here all this time.

Steve knows what comes next. It’s the record. The one that is more Bucky than Peggy.

Steve dances with Peggy, because that was what they came here for. He came because he was a man of his word, because he never broke a promise.

_ Didn’t he promise to be with Bucky? Didn’t he promise to stay?  _ Those things didn’t matter, now that he wouldn’t have any chance defending earth without the aid of Tony and Natasha.

He never allowed himself to think about Bucky. It felt sacreligious to think about his best friend when he was dancing with the love of his life, but his mind always strayed.

Steve didn’t force himself to stay on track this time around. As him and Peggy twirled around the room he allowed his mind to wander back to Bucky.

  
  


Steve smiled as he held his future in his arms, mustering up the bravery left in his body to reach out and reclaim his destiny. Steve wanted to believe that this was his destiny, but that wasn’t how it worked. Tony went back to save the world at the cost of his own life. He never got his happily ever after. People like them didn’t get a life like that.

This is what Steve wanted all along, wasn’t it? This was his endgame. Peggy and him, they were soulmates cut from the same cloth.

But it wasn’t.

Fine.

Steve could be honest with himself. Peggy Carter was a brilliant intellectual woman who men would fight wars over. She was the poster child of beauty and the spitting image of a romanticised war torn woman.

And so if he could never accept a full and happy life with Peggy一not just a woman, but  _ the  _ woman一maybe he could finally admit that a life with Bucky would be better.

Maybe he could admit that a life with Bucky and internet and safety and just a little bit of heroes’ glory would be better than a life where he knew every single historical before it even happened.

And with time, he could admit to himself that he was just a little bit gay, too.

Steve staying in the 1940s meant abandoning Bucky in the 21st century, both in this timeline and the one he just came from. Would he ever be able to live with that? Knowing he left Bucky while he was still an assassin without memory and leaving Bucky when Thanos was finally defeated?

The music ended, and Peggy smiled up at Steve. Steve smiled back, but he knew what he had to do. He looked at Peggy and kissed her chastely as he made his way to the door.

Peggy looked at Steve, taken aback. “Are you not going to stay, Steve?” She asked, and Steve could  _ feel  _ Peggy’s soul in just that one question.

It was one last invitation to walk back into the living room and pretend like there wasn’t a war torn American soldier getting his brains blown out in Germany. It was an invitation that Steve had to decline.

Steve smirked and rolled his eyes, taking the question in stride even if his heart was hammering. “Oh come now, Agent Carter. You’re telling me there isn’t a fella on his way here who knows you’re waiting at home? A pretty lady like you without a man in your life?” It was the one question that Steve had never had the heart to ask.

Peggy’s mouth flattened into a thin line as she thought carefully about what to say, and in her silence came the answer. Steve knew deep in his heart一it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair to steal Peggy’s destiny just because Steve didn’t like his own.

Steve opens the door, and the rain had cleared. The sun is shining, and life is starting over again. He takes Peggy Carter’s hand in his own and kisses it sincerely. “Thank you for everything, Agent Carter.”

Peggy looks back at Steve. “You don’t have to go, Steve.” She whispers back.

Steve shakes his head. “It isn’t fair for me to come back. To make him compete with me.” He says jokingly with an eye roll, but Steve also says it so sadly because it truly is what would have happened.

Peggy nods in understanding. “I’ll see you again, okay?”

Steve smiles and makes Peggy an empty promise, both of them knowing this is the last time they will ever meet. 

“I hope you get everything you deserve, Peggy.” He says with a knowing smile. 

Peggy shakes her head with an imperceptible smile. “Where are you gonna go?”

Steve smirks at Peggy, fighting back tears. “I’ve got some unfinished business.” 

He winks.


	8. the tale of two good men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> quick side note: political situations and transportation is a very generous extension of the truth.

No matter your political stance on the Germans and the Russians, everyone must admit that they kept perfect paper trails.

Some time in the seventies when the cold war began to escalate drastically, a particularly intelligent wing of the German HYDRA terror cells began using the Winter Soldier as a bargaining chip with the Soviet HYDRA terror cells in exchange for protection if their arms race ever escalated into anything more drastic.

And so the story goes, a very detailed Russian and German telegram goes along with it. The Russians agreed to ally with Germany on the condition that the Winter Soldier is the property of their HYDRA unit.

The transferral of the Winter Soldier into Russian possession happens at three in the morning on October 20th, 1975. According to the diaries of one very meticulous yet tragically forgotten HYDRA intern, they were expecting a blonde haired, blue eyed HYDRA diplomat who spoke very fragmented Russian and went by the name Matthias Baumhouwer. 

Instead, they got a blonde haired, blue eyed supposedly deceased all-American symbol of patriotism… who was semi-fluent in Russian, as well.

The Russian was never planned.

Steve picked up on some phrases and commands in Russian after a long stakeout with Natasha. It was bordering day twenty-one, and both soldiers were exhausted both mentally and physically.

Natasha had resulted to counting numbers in Russian when Steve had an idea. She was on one hundred thousand three hundred and twenty when Steve spoke up.

“Why don’t you teach me how to speak Russian?” Steve asked.

Natasha narrowed her eyebrows. “Why do you want to speak Russian?” She replied, after a long moment of silence.

Steve shrugged. “I’m a quick learner.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Is that one of the super-soldier benefits? Learning languages quickly?”

Steve smirked and nodded his head vehemently. “The serum made my brain capacity bigger.” He responded.

“Was that the only thing the serum made bigger?”

Steve frowned at Natasha.

* * *

By the end of their stakeout, which was approximately two weeks later and three arrested culprits in prison, Steve could understand what Natasha was saying and communicate back in very butchered Russian. It was coherent, to say the least.

It became routine for the duo. Once all their existential questions and battle plans were laid out, they got to the Russian lessons.

Steve and Natasha would have five more stakeouts before Natasha dies.

* * *

It was Bucky who helped Steve put the pieces back together. In the early days, Bucky would whisper something in quiet Russian. Most of their travels going to Wakanda was spent with Steve speaking in English and Bucky muttering back in rapid Russian.

His accent was nothing like Natasha’s. Natasha sounded as if she was reciting poetry. Bucky’s accent made his words sound as if he was reading out a death sentence.

Steve liked Bucky’s more.

* * *

On their last flight from Northern Africa all the way to Wakanda, Bucky said something very quiet. It was a phrase muttered so soft and quick that Steve might have missed it all together if he wasn’t used to Natasha doing the same thing too.

“ _ Я не заслуживаю спасения _ .” Bucky said quietly as the plane made its ascent.

Steve’s eyes flicked over to Bucky as he racked his brain trying to translate the phrase. 

_ I do not deserve salvation. _

Steve had heard Bucky say such things over the course of their trip, phrases such as  _ You do not have to put your life on hold for me,  _ or,  _ You are too good to me. _ But never did Steve respond back. 

Steve suddenly felt compelled to reply to Bucky, because it might be his only moment to do so.

“ _ ты заслуживаешь лучшего, чем спасение. ты заслуживаешь жизни. _ ” Steve replied, just as quiet as Bucky.

Bucky’s eyes grew wide and stared at Steve for a long time.

Steve felt his cheeks grow hot. “Did I say that right?”

Bucky laughed. “You said ‘ _ You deserve better than salvation, you deserve life.’  _ right?”

Steve nodded.

“You said it wrong.” Bucky continued. “You said  _ sokhraneny _ . You were supposed to say  _ spaseniye _ .”

The two of them laughed together.

* * *

It was 1975, in the Austria-Germany Central Eastern Alps, and the sky was moments from rain. One might even call it  _ inclement weather _ if they were so generous.

Steve brushed the lint off of his KGB uniform. He tried to stand up straighter and act as if he hadn’t just stolen the uniform from the Natural History museum. 

He wasn’t able to take the dossier from the future back to the seventies, and so he tried to memorize most of it. The details of the matter were simple. He was to extract the Winter Soldier from the German HYDRA base and leave the way he came. There was a Schnellzug EB912 waiting for him which would take him directly to Russia. 

The thought made his blood curdle. He would have to leave on the same train that Bucky had fallen off of. This time, he was going to right some wrongs.

He stared up at the unmarked door as he waited for it to slide open, as per Baumhouwer’s letters back home had stated. They were expecting a blue eyed, blonde haired KGB officer in the dead of night, and there Steve was.

As for the real Matthias Baumhouwer, Steve had sent him a telegram allegedly from the Russian HYDRA terror cell which would lead him in circles trying to find to find the unmarked door he was at.

The door slid open and he was greeted by the leering face of a German HYDRA agent.

“Bist du Matthias Baumhower?” The HYDRA agent asked.

Steve knew no German, but he nodded his head.

“Bist du hier für den Wintersoldaten?” The agent replied back.

Steve stayed silent as he tried to interpret what the agent had said. His mind latched onto the word  _ Wintersoldaten _ and instantly knew he was talking about Bucky.

“Я здесь для актива.” Steve replied in perfect Russian, just like he had been practicing all this time. 

_ I am here for the asset. _

The HYDRA agent sneered and waved him down a hall. They passed many rooms along the way into the chamber of the facility, many that Steve recognized. 

Once Bucky was safe in Wakanda and he was forced into hiding, Steve had saw to it personally that the last remnants of the Central Eastern Alp HYDRA facility was drained of any information it may contain and then burned to the ground. He even saw the chair they put Bucky in, and the dried bloodstains were almost too much for him to handle.

As they entered the main chamber, Steve tried his best not to gasp. The room was in much better state than it was when he stormed it in the 21st century, and the most startling difference was Bucky himself strapped to the chair, shirtless and skin soaked in a thin layer of sweat.

Steve tried to keep his eyes on Bucky and nowhere else.

Bucky’s eyes shone with recognition as him and Steve made eye contact. 

According to the HYDRA files, they had captured Bucky in the beginning of 1945. After the war ended, there was much deliberation on what they were to do with Bucky. They had reached a verdict in 1950.

That was when they pulled him out of cryostasis, operated on his arm, and threw him in a cell.

He was left in a cell for more months than he was frozen in the fifties, during the time period when the HYDRA leaders still didn’t know what their plans were following the war.

They starved him and experimented on him even more until 1960.

It was in 1960 that they began the first round of mind erasing techniques. There was a lapse of files in the sixties and for most of the seventies, during the time when they had tasked him to kill many different political opponents. The scientists could never keep him out of cryostasis for long until he had started to remember, but by the 80s HYDRA had reported that the Winter Soldier was fully functional and ready for mobilization for longer periods of time.

Steve could see the tips of Bucky’s lips curling upward, and he found the courage somewhere deep within him to lock eyes with Bucky and  _ wink _ .

Steve took a deep breath, fully expecting to battle his way through even a couple of the Nazi HYDRA agents. But as they went through processing almost wordlessly, his heart began beating faster and faster as he let himself believe that him and Bucky were going to get out of this mountain base alive.

“я соберу актив сейчас, спасибо.” Steve told the HYDRA official just as he rehearsed.

_ I will collect the Asset now, thanks. _

Bucky watched in disbelief as one of the HYDRA scientists released him from his leather shackles. His eye contact never broke with Steve.

The HYDRA official said something under his breath that he didn’t quite catch as they unceremoniously dumped Bucky into Steve’s arms.

Steve looked around at the room for a moment, in shock that this whole scheme might just go to plan after all. After a beat of silence, he turned and made his way to the door.

The sliding door swung open and he was greeted with a gust of mountain air.

“One more, Mister  _ Baumhouwer…”  _ The HYDRA official said in perfect English, in the intonation that indicated something stronger than just displeasure.

_ For fuck’s sake. _ And to think they almost got away with it. 

Bucky’s eyes looked glazed over (from all those years of mind wiping, and just a little bit of familiarity.) Steve swore to himself.

He turned back to face the German soldiers and in their eyes he could see it all. They knew who he was.

“Matthias Baumhouwer spoke perfect German, Mister Rogers.” The HYDRA agent said, as the room exploded in a flurry of red hot heat and brilliant bright lights.

Steve dropped to the ground in an instant, yanking Bucky down with him. He rolled over to shield Bucky from the firefight, years of military training and fighting on the offensive coming back to him in an instant.

He lunged directly forward, making sure that Bucky was out of their line of vision. Surely, their first objective was to keep Bucky in the hands of HYDRA operatives, but it wouldn’t hurt if Captain America’s head was hanging on their wall either.

He swung his leg along the floor and kicked as hard as he dared. It was around this time that Steve started to regret not bringing his shield along with him.

He sprung up on his feet and punched a soldier square in the face. “Bucky, get out of here!”

And suddenly they were in the forties again.

Suddenly it was just Steve and Bucky. And it was like time standing still.

Bucky blinked hesitantly, almost as if he wasn’t sure he would get the line correctly. “No, not without you.” He said. And it was just like the last time, if just with a little less conviction.

The words made the corner of Steve’s lip quick upwards as he turned around abruptly and made a break for the door. 

The two of them sprinted out of the HYDRA facility, as Steve handed Bucky a grenade.

Bucky smirked as he tossed the grenade haphazardly over his shoulder.

By the time they were down the mountain trail the whole facility went up in flames.

* * *

There were two platforms with two trains ready for departure at the St. Peter-Molinis station by the time Bucky and Steve were standing at the station, both of them disheveled from the activities of the day.

One of the trains stationed was the scheduled Schnellzug EB912 which was set to take them directly to a Russian HYDRA base. The other was an old-fashioned steam engine which was advertised as being a direct line all the way to the  _ Gare du Nord  _ train station in Paris. And they were both leaving in five minutes.

Bucky cleared his throat and spoke up for the first time since they ran from the HYDRA facility. Steve didn’t have the heart to ask Bucky if he had any memories, but from the way Bucky walked along with Steve, he knew in his heart that this Bucky was the in-between version of the one who fell off the train and the one he fought in the helicarrier. Hell, even his face look caught between two centuries.

He looked up at Steve. “So, what’s the plan?” Bucky asked.

Steve tried not to smile like a kid in the candy store when he realized this Bucky was more the Bucky in his dreams and not in his realities. He was still the Bucky who remembered.

“One train goes to Paris and the other one goes directly to a Russian HYDRA base. Pick your poison.” He said with a shrug.

Bucky scoffed with a sheepish smile as he stepped in front of Steve and walked into the train bound for Paris.

Steve followed behind Bucky, giving the train conductor two freshly photocopied train tickets.

As they took their seats and the train began to leave the station, Bucky looked at Steve. It looked like Bucky was searching for something.

“How are you still… young?” Bucky asked quietly.

Steve smiled sadly. “How about you?”

Bucky chuckled mournfully. “Long story.”

Steve smiled. “I bet mine is longer.”

“Yeah, I bet it is.”

They stayed quiet as the train began to leave the Central Eastern Alps.

Steve stared out the window. He doesn’t know what happened to the other versions of himself, or even this version. He knows that they probably disappeared when he left the timeline, but a part of him wanted to believe that there are different versions of Steve in the realities he visited.

He wants to believe there was a reality where he woke up the next day and proposed to Peggy Carter with his mother’s ring. He wants to believe that in this reality they have two children. They grow old. Perhaps after Peggy dies he goes back to the timeline he belongs.

Perhaps.

But at the same time, he wants to believe he will stay on this train forever. He wants to be  _ here  _ when they pull into Paris. He wants to see Bucky’s face when they rent out an apartment in Paris. He had slept through the seventies and he wanted to explore the world with a vengeance. Perhaps they live below a bakery and eat fresh baguettes and meats from the deli. Perhaps Bucky recovers and they fall in love and never have to work again.

Perhaps.

But more than anything, he wants to go back to the place he belonged to. It's 2023 and Steve is older, but not by much. He always knew he was a man out of time, but the time he belongs to is now the 21st century. That was his home. He wanted to live with Bucky in that timeline. He wants to live in an apartment and help Bucky recover. And he wants to grow old with Bucky (even though he doesn’t know that yet) and he wants to fall in love.

Perhaps.

Steve doesn’t know what the future holds in 2023, and that was what he wanted. He would forever be haunted by the destiny he had seen already if he stayed in the forties with Peggy or the seventies with Bucky.

Steve closes his eyes. It’s 1975 and the sun is rising just below the mountaintops. He says one last thank you to the universe, finally coming to terms with things. He could not change what would happen or even come so close as to change it. Natasha and Tony were dead, but they died a heroes death. Steve was their best friend, and it would be ain injustice to their memory if this was how he would live out the rest of the life that they had sacrificed their lives for. 

It was time to be a hero, even if being a hero meant something as simple as facing the future.

The sky is tinged golden and pink as Steve rests his head on Bucky’s shoulder, yawning as he felt lethargic and the wave of sleep wash him over.

Steve prepared to go to sleep. And this time, he knew he would wake up in a familiar room with a heart full of love and excitement for what was to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a many thanks to the readers of this story. this was the story that had taken up most of my mind space. it was the universe i entered when i got sick of counting sheep and i am very pleased with how it turned out. thank you for being here on my journey to coming to terms with the bitter reality of the demise of the original six.
> 
> thank you for reading my words.


End file.
